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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 4h \ on: Core Ventures Launches BTC-FI Accelerator bitdevs
What the hell is btc-defi? How do you 'stake' Bitcoin? Do you get 'free' Bitcoin?
It's not possible
100 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 OP 5h \ parent \ on: A Real SPAM solution: People using Bitcoin bitcoin
The point of 'spam' transactions... isn't the spending of money.
The spending of money is just a work-around to spamming/storing arbitrary data on the blockchain.
That data, disguised in code or datafields like op_return, only serves a secondary purpose usually associated with memecoins, nfts or highly-speculative "crypto" etc.
For example a transaction like this
Is not about an entity spending 563 sats / 67 cents over and over hundreds of times... there's little 'economic' reason to do that.
Instead, this user is 'pretending' that the "pi" token exists, and an external database is tracking the "existence" of that token and "movement" of that token by associating it with certain outputs.
"Pretending" that those outputs, in an external database, represent the "pi-token" and therefore can be traded is the heart and soul of the spam issue.
The creators of such transactions pay fees just like anyone else, that's not in doubt. However they pay the fees to use Bitcoin as an arbitrary database... to do their crypto trading. They're not using Bitcoin itself as a monetary network or Bitcoin the asset in and of itself.
Attempts to 'filter' the spam by filtering op_return completely... have been unsuccessful since only a small number of nodes have to successfully relay the spam-like transactions to miners.
In this case, it's not op_return but a small amount of information "hidden" in the witness which is indicating the external existence of a token. The information is minor... but degens treat that information as a 'cue' to the existence of tokens and exchanges (especially those base in China/Asia) "create" the tokens resulting in a large amount of spam-like on-chain activity.
Don't worry the economy is booming!! That's why rates need to be cut! Oh wait...
No wait I guess the economy slowing so "cut rates!!!" the president says!
But he says it's "booming!"
Which is it?
Tokens and shitcoins on Bitcoin don't exist. How could they? The only "cash" on the Bitcoin network is Bitcoin.
Hypothetically someone could "pretend" that an op_return output "ABC" is a new "token". And to "create" the token more op_returns need to appear with the words "mint" and "ABC" juxtaposed.
Degens show up and now there are thousands of transactions with that exact op_return - "mint ABC" flooding the network.
Were any tokens created? No. Were those 'tokens' stored on Bitcoin? No.
Where are those tokens? On some external database. Was this an innovation? No.
Now another set of degens show up and create a "new token" called the "DEF" token by including that symbol in op_returns next to the word "mint"...
"Mint DEF" appears by the thousands and thousands... after which an external database 'records' that the token was 'minted' by the thousands. Certain outputs are then traded to "speculate" on the value of that token... and sketchy Chinese exchanges "track" the movement of that token to "pretend" that people can trade dust outputs... and the degens show up flooding the network with dust/arbitrary transactions to pretend they are 'creating tokens'.
Was a "token" really added to Bitcoin? No.
Created on Bitcoin? No.
All the degens did was add arbitrary data and "pretend" they were creating something new...
As a matter of fact that's all that "runes" are. Arbitrary data.
And the consequnce? 10s of thousands of dust/spam-like transactions to simulate the 'movement of tokens' across the network even though there are no "tokens" on Bitcoin. The side effect is higher fees on the network, and also a growing UTXO set as degens pay the dust outputs.
Fee estimation is still hard. Big woop.
Accurate fee estimation is incredibly important across mempools. "Fragmenting the mempool" as it's called is incredibly bad and should be avoided.
Ya sure you can always look at mempool.space or whatever to do your fee estimation for a transaction... but that's exactly the point. Mempool.space shows everything it holds back nothing and if your own mempool isn't showing you the transactions you're competing with... this damages the network.
In general but especially when it comes to things like Lightning. Being able to open Lightning channels and know what the fees are in a timely manner is extremely healthy for Bitcoin.
As far as removing the slider in future versions of core... I agree with you.
However, from a design perspective it may be better that users just run their node at default settings and then actually go and use it. Using the node is the key thing...
A knots node rarely used does way less good for the network, than a "stock settings" node that's heavily used to broadcast and relay transactions. With accurate fee estimation.
Just playing the devil's advocate
If you are prepared to break the law repeatedly you can use Bitcoin for MoE via LN or on chain, but very few people will and even fewer businesses are accepting.
What choice do we have? I "boosted" this post because of the concerns it addresses... with my own hard-earned sats because like you said it's use it or lose it.
Some of the lacking on-chain activity can be explained by education... it's very shallow amongst the general public.
But NOT all of it in fact it doesn't make any sense.
In my opinion we should have way, way more on-chain activity than we currently do plus places to spend Bitcoin what merchant wouldn't want to accept money that literally goes up?
See #1079571 for my response...
Please see this post here #1079571
think he's right saying that "this" (I'd call it polarization) is a much larger problem than just specific to bitcoin or "filters"
Something that appealed to me so much about Bitcoin... is its technical foundation. I don't have to care about someone's politics or how they vote or the color of their skin or what they feel about certain 'issues'...
Do they have the keys or not? And do they want to pay for the blockspace or not? It's "pay up or shut up" and that gives people a remarkable ability to ignore the noise.
It's the "GFY money" of our time... the traders/financiers and "bitcoin treasury companies" can go **** themselves with their conferences. Do they have the keys or not according to a verified download of Bitcoin Core on an old laptop the rest is irrelevant.
He's also right in some of his assertions about how Bitcoin has changed since 2013, and I agree with him that it's not for the better in many aspects.
I can't stand twitter anymore I completely deleted it. Even Nostr i generally ignore, unless its news or something software related from some developer...
I choose to "focus on my craft" stack sats usually non-kyc and CoinJoin. That's it.
If the morons want to play "bitcoin treasury company" I could give a **** I do not endorse any new opcodes at this time and in no way shape or form want a "block size increase." Why?
Scammers will scam that's what they do... they will come and go. What they can't do is get Bitcoin for free, break consensus, or guess private keys (not without some kind of quantum computer).
I too am biased. I too have become much more toxic than I used to be. But at least I know it and I try to correct it if I go too far. I haven't seen anyone in this conflict admit that maybe they've been taking things too far. And that's why this won't be fixed, so it's better to move on.
I can't stand shitcoins. I have written about them, the disease that is "crypto" on SN many times and how it confuses people and how the Trump administration is whitewashing unregistered securities. The whole thing (all the unregistered securities) will eventually collapse they are based on thin air it's not if it's when.
Having said that... I still don't care.
I've never once not ever bought a shitcoin I have zero interest in them, and at the end of the day the degens will waste their money, suffer massive opportunity costs paying transactional fees and the network will march on.
All the millions wasted paying for arbitrary data in late 2023... on "inscriptions" and "NFTs" where did that go? To the miners.
Who have less Bitcoin? The scammers.
The scammers have less and the hodlers/stackers more the rest is noise.
From the little I've read, it sounded like it's literally a 51% attack by some second or third order shitcoin? Bitcoiners have the luxury to hang back while this plays out, and analyze this when there's more clarity. We can always red-team how to apply this to Bitcoin. But would be useless to do it while it is still ongoing. Should just capture data.
What always concerned me about XMR... was this idea that 'the devs will fix it' or "the next hardfork will make it OK"....
Really? So why exactly who are these devs? How do they get consensus to change things? And what happens if you "don't agree" with the changes? The vulnerabilities IMO go far beyond the qubic attack, and strike at whether the network can be easily changed and that never sat right with me.
71 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 OP 23h \ parent \ on: A Real SPAM solution: People using Bitcoin bitcoin
I don't know why there hasn't been way more skepticism... about where exactly the spam and repetitive op_returns by the 10s of thousands have been coming from? It looks like degens in China/Asia
100 sats \ 2 replies \ @028559d218 23h \ parent \ on: Maintaining The Spirit - Bitcoin Mechanic bitcoin
Furthermore... the things that Mechanic says are not true. I am not a fan of Monero I don't trust it, however saying that XMR has been 'completely captured' is ridiculous.
Is it less secure? Is its security compromised? Yes absolutely. It looks really fragile that some random ****coin can do so much damage...
However it's not a 51% attack. Also, the price has dropped. They are literally selling it under market to get out of it on Robosats in large quantities go look yourself.
The phrase "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" comes to mind.
100 sats \ 7 replies \ @028559d218 23h \ parent \ on: Maintaining The Spirit - Bitcoin Mechanic bitcoin
The filterers don't want to run another client. They don't want a "forked repo"... They don't want to 'co-exist' with Core...
They think Core is "captured" and "corrupted" Mechanic has said it himself they want a total takeover so that everyone runs knots. "Then" Bitcoin will be pure again.
So this information is... not correct?
So non-custodial wallets on Google Play, in the US and EU aren't restricted???
117 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 13 Aug \ parent \ on: A Real SPAM solution: People using Bitcoin bitcoin
But it "doesn't work". And "Doesn't scale". And it "has failed".
Right.
That's why I was able to boost this post to the Top of Stacker News while drinking a cappuccino at a random cafe... non-custodially using my iPhone.
Lightning is great and we need more education as to what it and Bitcoin are imo
I would agree. However there is a growing contingent of influencers, many of them well-meaning, accusing Core of malfeasance even misconduct or corruption with regards to Bitcoin... because they are "taking bribes" from the Spammers by "enabling spam" and "opening the shitcoin floodgates" (you see this alot on social media/X).
Like in 2017, they are saying the solution is to "run knots" which... doesn't make any sense to me. Low fee-rate transactions are getting through even though the vast majority of nodes filter them by default... the spam is getting through regardless of mempool policy and the filterers are only harming their own fee estimation.
In addition, the vast majority of the "spam" isn't jpegs... it's arbitrary data disguised as "tokens" usually in Witness script or op_return outputs. Anyone at any time can come up with any arbitrary way of including this data, any arbitrary schemes to "tokenize" data presented... just random 1s and 0s, It's a nuanced argument IMO and the "run knots" people aren't interested in nuance which doesn't help things.
Do they explain the risks involved in "running knots" or the tradeoffs? No. It's to "save Bitcoin" from the "evil Bitcoin Core" which doesn't make any sense to me.
Furthermore there is a technical deafness with regards to what is actually getting into mempools, what fees are being paid, and what the spam actually "is" which I think is wrong. A great benefit to Bitcoin is its transparency... actually examining what's in transactions and mempools and gaming/figuring that out over the next 25 years.
This post tried to take a guess at that and ask: Do People want to use Bitcoin or not?
lining up to use the next great Bitcoin-Rewards credit/debit card
Does the "rewards card" actually pay out in Bitcoin? I get something like 3% back on my credit card... which ultimately winds up as more Bitcoin I can use/save in.
Like I posted above, I use Bitcoin where I can there just aren't many places in the United States. Western Europe much better, but it's a bit out of the way at the moment.
I believe in 30 years we'll have ~1 billion daily Bitcoin users across the full spectrum of custody... all the way to from full self-custody of UTXOs and channels to custodial wallets to ETFs to derivatives to even banks. "1991 + 30 years = 2021" of the internet that's the model I compare it to.